Best Use of a Smoker for Something Other Than Meat

Smoked hummus at the Fountainhead

Critics' Picks

Phil Oye

When chef Cleetus Friedman landed at the Fountainhead in March, he brought along several items he'd been making at City Provisions, the Ravenswood deli he closed earlier this year. My favorite among them: the smoked hummus. When Friedman was at City Provisions, Barry Sorkin gave him a smoker after Smoque outgrew it, and as Friedman told me a couple years ago, "Every single thing in this kitchen has made it into this smoker in one way or another. One of the best things to come out of it is my smoked hummus." Other experiments were less successful: "Smoking dried fruit . . . not the best thing," he said. At the Fountainhead, he's started to use whiskey barrels in the smoker rather than regular wood, but other than that the hummus recipe is unchanged. And he hasn't stopped experimenting: in late May, he had just come up with a smoked-chocolate creme brulee that he was considering adding to the menu.